


The Crossing of Two Dreams

by balloonwhisk



Series: The Only Thing That Makes Sense [2]
Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, M/M, also apologies in advance because this is as subtle as a wrecking ball, some Damien/Mark though it's not the focus of the story, the rating is for a sex scene that has some body horror elements so warning for that I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 05:21:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13451415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balloonwhisk/pseuds/balloonwhisk
Summary: After leaving Sam's house, Rose pays Damien a visit.





	The Crossing of Two Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is unbetaed because I've been thinking about it nonstop for the past week and I just had to post it so I could move on with my life! English is not my first language so there's bound to be some weirdness. Please let me know if you see any mistakes. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> The title is from the 2006 movie Paprika. The full line is "The crossing of two dreams creates many more dreams."

 

Rose waited until she had driven for a few blocks before calling Damien. He answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

Rose pressed her lips together. There was a rustling on the other side as Damien checked the caller ID. “Rose? I didn’t expect to hear from you again.”

Rose tightened her grip on the steering wheel, then abruptly turned it and parked the car on the side of the street.

“Looks like I’m not going to hear from you now either, so...” Damien drawled.

“YOU ASSHOLE!!” Rose exploded, her face flushed with embarrassment and indignation. “Mind control? Really? MIND CONTROL?? When were you planning on telling me?!”

“Uh, it’s not exactly-” Damien tried to cut in but Rose was on a roll.

“And the stalking! And the kidnapping! AND THE THREATENING TO MAKE SOMEONE KILL THEMSELVES!! When were those going to come up, huh?!”

“Did you just call to yell at me?” Damien asked sourly.

“YES! No! I don’t know! Just…I’m really angry right now.”

“I can see that.”

“Oh, bite me. You screwed over a lot of people Damien! You failed to mention that when you were bemoaning all the ways the AM did you wrong.”

“Yeah, well.” He fell silent.

Rose took a deep breath. “Where are you right now?”

“Home…Why?” Damien asked suspiciously.

“Give me your address. I’m coming over.”

“What? No you’re not!”

“Yes, I am! I’m coming over and you’re telling me the truth.”

 

\---

 

Twenty minutes later, Rose arrived at Damien’s apartment complex, which was much nicer than she expected considering his uniform of frayed jeans and the one grey hoodie. Before leaving the car, she sent a quick text to Aaron, telling him that she was hanging out with her _AM buddy_ , as he’d taken to calling Damien, for the evening, and sending the address too, just in case.

Damien opened the door in boxers and a faded OBEY tee. He squinted at her.

Rose breezed past him into the apartment. “You look even worse than you did yesterday.”

“Gee, thanks.” Damien mumbled.

“Are you hungover _again_?”

“Well there’s nothing remotely ingestible in this house other than bourbon, so yeah.”

“Drunk dreams are tricky but we’ll just work with it.” Rose shoved a huge to-go cup with steam rising from the lid into Damien’s hand. “Drink this.”

He blinked. “What is it?”

“Chamomile tea.” Rose took a sip from her own cup. “It’ll help you sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep, I woke up like two hours ago!”

“Well tough! We’re both sleeping and you’re showing me the truth. _The_ _whole truth,_ Damien.”

Damien glared but Rose shouldered her way into the kitchen, undeterred. “Do you really not have anything? Not even milk or yogurt? That’ll also help.” She began checking the fridge and the cupboards.

Damien leaned against the doorjamb. He seemed to be gaining his confidence back after the initial shock of Rose barging in but he was still hunched over, suspiciously sniffing the cup he was holding. “No. I’m lactose intolerant.”

“Oh.” Rose was momentarily taken aback. “Nevermind then. Drink your tea.”

Damien took a sip and made a face. “Ugh! This is disgusting!”

“Suck it up.”

Damien opened his mouth as if to say something, but then seemed to think better of it and took another sip of his tea.

Having exhausted the paltry options offered by the kitchen, Rose made her way to the living room. “So, how do you sleep usually?”

“Why? You wanna cuddle?”

Rose was well past her limit. “Stop being a dick. I’m just asking if you’re one of those people who can fall asleep anywhere at the drop of a hat or if you need soothing music or complete silence or a bath or a scented candle-”

“Scented candle?”

“It’s relaxing!” There was a beat as Damien resentfully drank tea and Rose took in the depressing state of the living room. It looked like Damien had never tidied up anything in his life. “So?”

“So what?”

“How do you usually sleep?”

Damien sighed. “I don’t need any fancy shit. I don’t like the quiet so I just put something on the TV.”

Rose nodded decisively. “Okay then. What do you want to watch?” She put down her cup in order to take off her coat and dump it on the sofa before braving the piles of candy wrappers and dirty laundry on the coffee table to look for the remote.

“Why are you here?”

“I told you. I want to know the truth.”

“Didn’t Dr. B already tell you what a monster I am?” Damien sneered.

“Yes. Dr. Bright, her brother and Sam and the others all told me the awful things you’ve done.”

“You talked to all of them? Mark too?”

“Yes.”

Damien fidgeted with the lid of his cup. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”

Rose finally turned to look at him, remote in hand. “I am. You’re dangerous. And a terrible person.”

“Then why come at all?”

“I want to see how you tell it.” She handed him the remote. “Find something to watch. I’m gonna use the bathroom.”

 

\---

 

Half an hour later, they were no closer to sleep. When Rose had gotten back from the bathroom, Damien had been curled under a blanket watching an old episode of Chopped, seemingly in an attempt to extend an olive branch. He had raised his eyebrows at her and nodded at the somewhat dusty-looking blanket on the opposite side of the sofa. However, his graciousness had only lasted until partway through the Entrée round, when he’d interrupted Rose’s impromptu lecture on the proper way to fillet cod fish with an exasperated “Jesus, I don’t care! Calm down!” and changed the channel. They hadn’t been able to agree on anything to watch since then. Rose had thought a Buffy marathon had looked promising, even though she wasn’t the biggest fan of season 6. But Damien had taken one look at the scene where Buffy and Spike were arguing, scowled, and jammed the next button with far more force than necessary. He’d been restlessly channel surfing ever since, and Rose was getting fed up with it.

“Just put on a documentary or something and let’s _please_ get this show on the road.”

“You _could_ always leave.”

Rose shot him a flat look. Damien tried to feel around the edges of her mind and break through, but she wouldn’t budge.

“Fine.” Resigned, he changed the channel to PBS where the fall of Constantinople was playing out in grainy footage. “Here. This should put us right out.”

They both burrowed further under their blankets and watched how Mehmet, at the tender age of 21, had made boats walk across land. Within five minutes, they were asleep.

 

\---

 

It started the same way it had before. Rose followed Damien as he stalked through endless hallways and through crowds that parted for him without paying him any attention. The dread in the pit of Rose’s stomach grew as Damien wandered, opening doors and peeking around people’s shoulders, searching, searching.

Finally, Damien opened a door and was violently pulled in and now they were in a bedroom. He stumbled and his back hit the wall and then somebody was on him, pinning him with a forearm across the chest. Long fingers wound in his hair and pulled his head back, revealing wide eyes.

Rose’s heartbeats were rabbit-fast. Her body was humming, begging to be allowed to touch, to be touched in turn. As the tall figure leaned into Damien, breath ghosting his cheek, Damien shuddered and Rose flushed.

“You’re really desperate, aren’t you?” Mark whispered. Damien’s only reply was his labored breathing and his fingers scrabbling at the wall for purchase. Mark eased off a little and sneaked his arm around Damien, enveloping him with a possessive palm against the back of his neck, crushing him with his now naked body and oh. The floor beneath Rose’s feet disappeared and she was falling, falling.

Mark chuckled. “You can touch me too. I want you to.” And that was all it took. Damien’s hands flew up to Mark, drawing his face down and crushing their lips together with a ferocity that caused Mark to lose his balance. Damien took advantage and pushed him towards the bed, throwing him down and straddling him. Rose was breathless as Mark grabbed Damien and flipped them around, pinning him with his palm splayed on Damien’s chest. Mark used his free hand to spread Damien’s legs further and pushed in. Damien’s heart was beating beating beating, the blood was rushing in Rose’s ears. The moment stretched on as Mark scrutinized Damien’s face, as Damien softly rubbed Mark’s hips with his thumbs and helplessly gazed back, as Rose’s limbs tingled.

“I see you, you know.” Mark said. “I know you.” His hand started sinking into Damien’s chest as his hips began to move. His fingers were getting longer, burrowing into Damien. Rose felt Mark’s grip around her own heart as Mark leaned in with his full weight and Damien’s ribs cracked. “There’s nothing in here, is there?” Damien’s eyes were wet but Mark would not let up. “You selfish piece of shit.” And Rose could feel it, under the terror and the pain, the familiar fuzzy warmth spreading from her core and overtaking her body. She squeezed her eyes shut. _No_ , she thought, horrified, but it kept on coming. _Stop_ , she pleaded, _STOP_. And just as she thought she would be swept away and dashed into a million pieces, it did.

“Shit” muttered Damien, momentarily blinded by the headlights from the car coming the opposite way. The driver honked obnoxiously and Damien flipped him off before casting a worried glance at the passenger seat. There was no movement, only the steady sound of breathing. That was good. He checked the rear-view mirror and almost drove the car off the road.

“Rose??”

Rose straightened in the backseat and her widened eyes met Damien’s in the rear-view mirror.

“What the fuck? How long have you been there?”

“Since the beginning.” she answered quietly.

“Since the motel?”

“Don’t you remember? We were in your living room.”

Damien furrowed his brows in confusion for a moment before his expression cleared. “This is a dream? You’ve been in my dream this whole time?” Rose nodded. “So you were there when…” Damien’s face turned blotchy.

“Yeah.” Rose averted her eyes. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t stay there any longer. I wanted to go somewhere peaceful.”

“And you brought us here?”

“ _You_ brought us here. I just gave you a nudge.”

“You can do that? Change people’s dreams?”

“Sometimes.”

“So you can make people dream whatever you want?”

“It’s not like that! I can just… smooth out the edges a little.”

“ _That’s_ not creepy at all.”

”You’re one to talk!” Rose snapped.

The shape in the passenger seat twitched before becoming still once again.

“Keep it down will you? This is the longest he’s gone without a nightmare and he’s _really_ cranky when he doesn’t get his beauty sleep. I don’t know why, dude was asleep for two years, you’d think that would last him a lifetime.”

“Is that- Is that Mark?”

Damien frowned. “Of course. Who else would it be?”

Rose didn’t have anything to say to that. She leaned forward to peer at the figure and yeah, there he was. Her heart filled with fondness and longing and a blinding possessiveness. She felt like she was expanding uncontrollably like a balloon.

“Please stop that.”

“I can’t help it.”

“ _Try_.”

“Okay, okay.”

The bubbling pressure inside Rose eased a little. “Thank you.”

For a while, the only sounds in the car were Mark’s breathing and Fleetwood Mac on the radio.

Rose cleared her throat. “So… This is your happy place?”

“Hmm?”

“I wanted to go somewhere safe and you immediately brought us here. Why?”

Damien scratched the back of his neck. “It’s simple here.”

“Simple.” Rose was feeling a headache coming on. “It’s simple, driving around in a stolen car with a traumatized guy you kidnapped, who was trying to literally climb inside of you not five minutes ago?”

“That’s not- Look. He’s the only one who had a chance of understanding. Of- of choosing, okay?”

“He didn’t seem inclined to choose you earlier.”

Damien shrugged one shoulder.

“You really screwed him up you know. Whatever the fuck’s been going on inside you, it’s bled into him.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!”

“But you did it! It still happened!” Rose thought of Mark. The tempest she could feel in his subconscious as Damien’s misdeeds were recounted. The hard look on his face as he told her that he’d be fine. Then she looked at the Mark in the front seat, his face open in sleep. They seemed like two different people. “You can’t keep hiding from it.”

“I’m not hiding from anything.”

On the radio, Stevie Nicks was singing _run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies_. Rose met Damien’s eyes and raised an eyebrow.

“Whatever.”

Rose huffed.

“How are you lecturing me about hiding right now? Didn’t you spend a month basically asleep?” Damien was getting pissed now, and so was Rose.

“It’s not the same. That doesn’t hurt anybody!”

“Doesn’t it? I’m sure Emily would love to find out that you’ve been in her head rearranging things!”

“I am not _rearranging things_!”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ve never _nudged things along_.”

Rose was silent.

“That’s what I thought.” Damien sighed. “Look, I get it. It’s who you are. There’s no escape from that.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. You can’t just give up.”

Damien sneaked a glance to the figure in the passenger seat. “There’s no point.”

“You can’t believe that!”

“Why did you even come here?” asked Damien, exasperated.

“Because I needed to know! I _saw_ you!” Rose took a calming breath and went on. “I know you too. Clearly not all of you, but still. When they told me the things you’ve done, I just… I had to see for myself. I had to see that I wasn’t wrong about you. That there was a reason.”

“Sorry to disappoint then.”

“Yeah.”

They drove on for a while. Damien broke the silence. “You can go.”

“What?”

“I won’t, like, come after you if that’s what you’re worried about. I’ll leave you alone.”

“That’s- I’m not worried about that.”

“Why not? You should be.”

“Maybe.”

“You have no self-preservation instincts.”

Rose laughed, the first laugh in what felt like a thousand years. “That’s what Aaron says. He doesn’t put it quite so diplomatically though.”

Damien smiled. They looked at each other in the rear-view mirror for a moment.

Rose nodded, and woke up.

 

\---

 

It was late in the evening. The only light in the room was from the TV showing a wildlife documentary. Rose stared at the komodo dragons locked in a fight with unseeing eyes. Then, she threw off her blanket and got up. She groped in the dark for her coat, accidentally poking Damien in the side. He didn’t wake up. She looked around the room, out the window into the city, then turned the TV off, and quietly left the apartment.

She got in the car, and texted Emily before she could talk herself out of it: _i know its late but can i come over?_

Her reply was instantaneous: _of course!_ and then _i missed you <3 _

Rose started the car. It was time to stop hiding. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I'm not good enough of a writer to convey all that I've been thinking about in regards to Rose & Damien, but I hope you liked it anyway! Thank you for reading!
> 
> The documentary they're watching while trying to sleep can be found [on vimeo](https://vimeo.com/channels/timelinetvseries/97349437). I'm familiar with the subject and got a real kick out of it so I thought I'd put it in here.
> 
> Damien's dream was pretty heavily inspired by disasterscenario's [NSFW comic](http://disasterscenario.tumblr.com/post/169586401709/even-in-dreams-by-mk) and also Paprika.
> 
> The Fleetwood Mac song playing on the radio is [The Chain](https://youtu.be/JDG2m5hN1vo), because I keep forgetting that Damien and I are not in fact the same person.


End file.
